Mobility doesn’t work like that anymore. Moving states in 1929 meant, for the most part, a completely fresh start - your landlord wasn’t going to chase you for

Mobility doesn’t work like that anymore. Moving states in 1929 meant, for the most part, a completely fresh start - your landlord wasn’t going to chase you for the rest of the rent on your lease, you didn’t have a car payment or health insurance to worry about (using social security nets like medical or housing assistance is even harder when you haven’t yet established residency in a new state), and if you had any debts or even reputation issues they were very unlikely to “follow” you. Now we have credit reporting, background checks, and a system that, by design, makes it all but impossible to “start over” when you have no other options.